14 January 2016

Nick Breeze video 1.5 Degrees COP21 and the Paris Agreement

Nick Breeze has done another excellent short summary video about COP21 and the Paris Agreement and Government responses. The video includes short excerpts of interviews with Brit MP Caroline Lucas, Saleemul Huq, Kevin Anderson, Jason Box and Michael Bloomberg. I was viewer number 116 on You Tube

The key message I get from this is that irrespective of the obvious high ambition represented by the 1.5 (or 2) Celsius of warming temperature limit in the Paris Agreement, the actions and responses of governments and policy-makers are still rhetoric and business-as-usual. In other words, nowhere near anything like a rational response to the seriousness of the risk.

This is exemplified in the short interview with Shannon Phllips, Minister for the Environment in the Province of Alberta, who squirms and says its unfair to be asked if the Alberta tar sands industry should be shut down so as to stay within a carbon budget consistent with 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius.